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Posts tagged ‘Peace’

“And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”

The way for a Christian to walk is in love, and I don’t mean our love for God, but His love for us. We no longer have to live from our limited resources and unreliable emotions. Rather, we can live in sweet communion with the love and grace of Jesus, allowing our spiritual lives to be articulated and expressed through enjoying and relying upon God’s personal love for us. As we walk in an awareness of God’s love, we begin to walk in emotional well-being, both experiencing and manifesting the sweet-smelling blessings of His grace: the fruits of Christ’s resurrection, and our inclusion in that. Galatians 5:6 communicates to us that ‘faith worketh by love’ (KJV). In other words, walking in the Spirit is simply walking in a revelation of God’s special love towards us (Romans 8:4 Galatians 5:25). Likewise, 1 John 4:16 declares, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (KJV)

As we are conscious of the love of Jesus, setting our minds on this love, we enjoy and experience the spiritual realities of our inheritance in Christ (Romans 8:5; Colossians 3:1). The power source of our lives, which causes God’s faith, blessings, and glory to manifest effortlessly both to us and through us, is God’s love. Ephesians 3:19 writes that our goal as believers should be to ‘know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.’ (KJV). As we know the love of God towards us, we walk in the sweet-smelling gifts and treats of our inheritance in Christ – the ‘sweet’ spot which is characterised by ease, blessing, and manifest power and glory. In this place of being loved by God, the power of God comes alive for us, and we discover even bitter trials that would naturally overcome us, are defeated before us and transformed into total and utter sweetness. Like Samson, when we know the love of God, our lives will become a declaration that, “… Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” (Judges 14:14; KJV), because the love of Jesus in all of its transformative creativity and mighty power is both sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion (Judges 14:18). The love of God is therefore the context of our conversation and communion with Jesus – it is the matter and flow of the spiritual realm.

The love of God brings substance, sense, and context to all the blessings and giftings of our faith – an example of this is prophecy. 1 Corinthians 14:3 describes prophecy as such: ‘But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.’ (NLT). Prophecy is therefore giving a voice to the power, insight, and intimacy of God’s love. Song of Solomon 5:16 (RSV) gives further context to the voice of prophecy: “His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem”. – Prophecy is therefore a beautiful, articulate way to enjoy our sweet communion with Jesus in the love of God, as it is listening to the voice of your beloved friend and hearing of his sweet, desirable blessings for you! The glory, power, and wisdom of God is expressed in fullness in the sweet-smelling love of God. As we taste and enjoy the delicious goodness of this love in the revelation of Jesus Christ, God’s power, glory, and wisdom is continually magnified and manifested through our lives (Psalm 34:3,8).

Scripture declares that we are destined to reign in life through the abundance of grace and the freely given gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17). The Greek word for ‘reign’ used in Scripture means to ‘exercise the highest influence; exercise kingly authority’ over a situation. In other words, the revelation of our righteousness in Jesus and the grace we have been gifted with in Him will cause us to walk in royal authority and confidence, knowing that every situation and circumstance is destined to conform to God’s blessings. As you rest in the Gospel of grace and your inheritance in Christ, your situation is destined to come under your feet (Hebrews 10:12-14), you are destined to reign above it and remain on top of things (Deuteronomy 28:13), so that you will see all things working together for your own, personal good (Romans 8:28). God is so creative that he can completely transform any and every bad circumstance so that it ends up working for your favor.

Child of God, as you walk in a relational awareness of God’s grace and your righteousness in Him, not only are you destined to see complete restoration in your circumstances (Joel 2:25-26), you will also see what Romans 5:17 calls God’s ‘MUCH MORE’ restoration – restoration that is over and above what circumstance calls for, over and above what you expect or deserve, over and above what you have experienced before; even over and above what you could ask, think or imagine (Isaiah 61:7; Job 42:10; Ephesians 3:20). In fact, you are destined to experience such an overload of restorative, sweet, favor-filled blessings that Scripture declares that the shame, insecurities, and anxieties of the past will be completely forgotten (Ezekiel 39:26; Isaiah 54:4). It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, what you’ve been through, or how long you have been stuck there, God is willing and able to bless you in such magnitude (according to His grace and not according to your efforts, how much you deserve it, or whose ‘fault’ the situation was), so that those things will have NO effect on you anymore and no trauma, sorrow, regret, or pain attached to them. Instead, rejoicing will have swallowed up sorrow, and beauty will remain in place of ashes (Isaiah 61:3). The promises of God are able to speak personally into each situation in your life. For every contradiction, concern, or trial, there is a promise of God found in Scripture and given to us freely in Christ, so that not only you, but your whole family, entire household and all of its appliances and rooms, can be furnished fully with the blessings, security and provision of Scripture (2 Corinthians 1:20; Psalm 122:7; Jeremiah 33:6; Deuteronomy 28:1-13).

Believe it or not, it gets even better than this. Scripture declares that as you continue to walk in the revelation of ‘the abundance of God’s grace’, and your ‘free gift of righteousness in Him’, you are going to grow in such an understanding of this that:

In Scripture, the number seven always points towards completion and perfection. In other words, you can get to a place in your walk with Jesus where you have such a full and complete revelation of God’s grace, and your inheritance in Him, that your life will be smooth and trouble-free forever more, with not a hint of evil, trouble, or contradiction. As we are growing in our understandings and revelations, sometimes trials and contradictions come up against us. We can be confident that God is delivering us, and will deliver us every time, as Job 5:19 in Scripture says. However, God’s intent is for us is that we would always experience an evil-free, curse-free existence, abounding in blessings! You have been redeemed from EVERY curse, to EVERY blessing imaginable (Galatians 3:13-14). This is because your righteousness in Christ is both a defensive weapon to protect you from harm, and an offensive weapon to cause curses and evil to flee. 2 Corinthians 6:7 (KJV) declares: “By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,”

Spiritually, the righteousness of God is the substance of light, and it fortifies us from darkness, the works of the enemy (see John 10:10), and all contradictions. Our righteousness in Christ is a powerful revelation: Psalm 37:8 (KJV) declares that God will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and Psalm 91:11 (KJV) says that those who know they are righteous sow light wherever they go. Let’s take a look at what Isaiah 58:8,11 says about God’s light as our protection:

“Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall spring forth speedily: and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard…And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” (KJV)

This verse declares that the revelation of our righteousness in Christ will go ahead of us into each circumstance, making the path smooth and ushering in God’s provision blessings! It will also completely cover our past, so that no matter what mistakes we have made, no darkness, punishment, guilt, condemnation, or fear can come upon us (see Romans 8:1). This is what a believer looks like when they know that they have the free gift of righteousness and the abundance of grace! They are completely free, and totally fortified in God’s unconditional, irrevocable blessings! (Galatians 5:1). This is why John 1:5 (AMP) comments that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot find or comprehend it!

The glory and beauty of these grace-truths make us bold in the reality that we have the ability, power, and security to be calm in the midst of opposition, knowing that no harm shall come near us or our loved ones (Psalm 91:10), and that God’s favor surrounds us as a shield so that we can live a smooth life of uninterrupted blessings, health, peace, and security (Psalm 5:12). Luke 10:19 boldly declares: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (KJV) – Behold these truths, beloved! They are freely yours through the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness!

“Your very next thought, feeling, or action can begin to uncover the deepest spiritual wisdom, which flows pure and free as mountain waters in spring” – Deepak Chopra

In Christ we have been planted into a whole new world. This world is the dimension of ‘being’ that Romans 6 invites us to bask and bathe in. It is the wisdom of the ages revealed in full clarity (John 4:24; Colossians 2:3). Instead of living from inferior mind-sets and desires, we can live from the heart and mind of heaven – the true pattern of our design. Our every cell bathes in heaven’s substance. Indeed, our substance is a unique flavour of Jesus. Repentance is not simply changing our own minds to believe this truth – it is going beyond an independent sense of ‘self’, to the flavoursome consciousness of Christ, expressing himself in unique and whimsical ways through you. It is sinking into a unique, satisfying, expressive-divine union with Christ.

“Well then, by virtue of undergoing baptism into death we were buried with him, in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we, too, might live and move in a new kind of existence” – Romans 6:4 (God’s New Covenant: A New Testament Translation)

We have been given a new quality of life, a new kind of existence in union with the Godhead; a divine-spiritual kind of humanity which is serenity, tranquillity, and garden-beauty. J.B. Phillips articulates this wonderfully, stating that in Christ an entirely new plane of existence, a new dimension of living, has opened up to us:

“We were dead and buried with him in baptism, so that just as he was raised from the dead by that splendid Revelation of the Father’s power, we too might rise to life on a new plane altogether. If we have, as it were, shared his death, let us rise and live our new lives with him! Let us never forget that our old selves died with him on the cross that the tyranny of sin over us might be broken—for a dead man can safely be said to be immune to the power of sin. And if we were dead men with him we can believe that we shall also be men newly alive with him” – Romans 6:4-8 (Phillips)

This kind of life is one of full immersion into the Godhead, where we can instantaneously access all of the atmospheric and practical virtues and blessings of God’s quality of life, no longer having to be dominated by any of those ancient habits and wrong ways of feeling, thinking, and being that we tried so sincerely to rid ourselves of. The problem was that we so falsely believed that this uninspired, dull, sin-way of living was our identity and the pattern of our design. Francois du Toit in the Mirror Bible accurately reveals to us that the power of Romans 6 lies in the fact that when we died, these false realities were completely eradicated from us, torn apart from our sense of consciousness, so that we could experience a new kind of fullness – the fullness of God’s nature and core-material. Francois states that the truth of Romans 6 “have set a new standard to become the pattern of your life; the grace of God ended sin’s dominance…consider your life now, there are no outstanding debts; you owe sin nothing! A life bonded to God yields the sacred expression of his character, and completes in your experience what life was always meant to be.” – Romans 6:17, 22 (Mirror Word)

The new reality which we experience through Christ results in consciousness-expansion, so that we can feel each aspect of us at rest, in the ease and lightness of the glory realm of God’s love – swimming in the psychedelic inspiration-colours and delicious abundance-aromas of heaven’s life. We are bonded to all of heaven, expressing the inspiration and composition of God naturally, through our personalities and hearts. The river of life flowing within us once gurgled and slopped with a thick, murky sludge-like quality, glooping lazily through a garden of death, yet Christ was the mystic portal that transported us through the looking-glass of life, and now we are a dancing, living, fresh-pure stream, flourishing in a garden of life and lofty beauty. We are free, where we once were stuck in muddy, difficult mind-sets. We are in the ease of the Breath of life.

“…If we were planted into the garden of His death, surely we shall be planted into the garden of His resurrected life” – Romans 6:5 (Cotton Patch)

It is not simply that we ‘shall be’ – the context of Romans 6 reveals that we already are. Another way that Paul describes this is in Colossians 3:9-10:

“Seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man”

We are therefore instructed to SEE and BEHOLD the realities of Jesus to experience what is already true of us at the core of us, in the spiritual realm, in the here and now. Interestingly, the words for ‘put off’ and ‘put on’ in Colossians are the Greek words ‘ekduo’, and ‘enduo’. These words describe sinking out of one thing and into another. – We have sunk into his resurrection garden through resting in his love and faithfulness on our behalf! So to see this new life manifesting through our bodies and circumstances, all we have to do is keep on sinking into the glorious realities of the Father’s love for us! Rest into the cosy comfort of his detailed, lavish goodness.

Seeing this beautiful garden of our essence is the Father’s aromatherapy.

“The bliss of God is the essence of holiness itself. Many confuse holiness with the outward form of legalism or external religious activities. But holiness is not the absence of sin; it is the Presence of God. A lot of people think they are in God’s will because they have gotten rid of a lot of sin, but emptying out all of your bad stuff does God no favors. You can be empty of sin, but still be empty! Don’t be empty; instead get full of God! Being filled with the Spirit always produces fruitfulness and wonders…The more you drink His Presence, the more you believe what he has already done. The more you believe, the more virtue you manifest” – John Crowder, The Ecstasy of Loving God.

The Romans 6 reality is a great drink of, well, Reality! As you drink of the revelation of the resurrection of Christ, which is the Song of all songs, you begin to realise that forgiveness of sins is only one half of the Gospel – the entire power of God is in the revelation of our heady resurrection with Christ. A resurrection that has turned our whole world upside down – that has placed us in a new kind of existence. The Kingdom of God is at our fingertips, and it is not about words but it reveals that we bathe in, and are surrounded by, the POWER of God’s goodness and glory. His very essence flows through our veins. (1 Corinthians 4:20). This world is Jesus Christ, our all in all (Colossians 3:11). His Spirit of tranquillity is that mystic spring. The nourishing elixir of life. As Psalm 36 states, God ‘gives us to drink of the wadi of delights’. We are invited to simply sit in the Presence of God, free of religious obligations and stoic, religious ideas. To simply sit and drink up the new world.

“When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world. The old order has gone, and a new order has already begun” – 2 Corinthians 5:17 (New English Bible)

We are not simply planted in this world; we are also composed of it. Galatians 2:20 in the Distilled Bible says, ‘I consider myself as having died and now I am enjoying a second existence, which is simply Jesus using my body’. Your whole body is filled with the Presence of Jesus, flowing with this holy, heavenly, happy life of bliss. Indeed, our very breath is the ruah; the life-breath of God. The Kingdom of heaven is an experiential reality, and not some castle in the air.

Jesus calls us to enjoy his bliss through a conscious awareness that we are united with him at the core of us. We are breathing the Holy Spirit – the fullness of God in the here and now. Inhale the beauty of this whole new world, the creative inspiration, the endless paradise-harmony-pleasure, and you will effortlessly exhale the miraculous – divine renewal of youth, a sound mind, financial miracles. Allow yourself to feel those waves of his Spirit flowing through you. The abundance, health, and total well-being of his Presence within you – indeed, your very own Presence. You are in total oneness with this Presence. You are composed of the life of the Godhead. The peace that surpasses all understanding bathes your whole being – you were made for tranquillity. You are the glory cloud. You are the enchanted forest that invites you to explore endless prophetic depths.

As you realise that in your co-union with Christ, you are wholly holy, you will effortlessly flow with the frequencies of heaven – his energies and vibrations that speak life into your life. Sink deeper, sail further away on the waves of his love and grace, and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. We can sink into the satisfaction and lofty pleasure of God’s garden universe. You have the fullness of heaven’s vibrations right now. Feel them – the wisdom is in the experience of God. The glory articulates the wisdom of God through your being, into your mind, into your emotions. Picture a hookah, an oriental water pipe, which draws the smoke through a bowl of water. The revelation of your co-union with Jesus Christ is an experiential Holy Spirit hookah. It flavours everything with the life of heaven.

The message of inclusion which the Gospel articulates to you is that everything about you and your perspective is ‘in Christ’, and in Christ, it is Glory Land. This is the reality of perfection, beauty, and abounding creativity – here, everything is inspiration. As Titus 1:15 sings, ‘to the pure, all things are pure’. Your reality is purity in all-things. Allow yourself to sink into these realities, like a soothing, comforting bubble bath of aromatic fragrances. Allow yourself to enjoy the altered state of consciousness that the Gospel offers!

“There is another way; a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity.” – Rumi

The Gospel of Jesus always gives us a deeper drink of life. Keep on drinking in this whole new world. Rest in this perfected garden of intoxicated serenity, breathing in the colours, sounds, and sights of this paradise garden of God. You have unlimited friendship with the Trinity! Unhindered union!

To human reasoning, perfection-bliss-creativity in the here and now can seem like insanity. It goes against the grain of human wisdom. But it truly remains the wisdom of the Father. The heavenly perspective of Jesus Christ, and all of his love and wonder is referred to in Scripture as the potent wine of God. God truly is a free Spirit of wild, untamed wonder. As 2 Corinthians 5:13 states, “if we are out of our mind, it is for God”.

Yes, let us be hedonists of God – lovers out of our minds, living from the mind of Christ – wonderland. Let us be drinkers of his pleasure, unable to resist the superior delights of enjoying this breath of life, and the altered state of consciousness it brings us, as we see that lie of an independent self utterly severed from our perceptions. The limitations we held within our vision – those threats and contradictions – melt like butter on a hot day. You can give up self-confidence and the lie of independent living and reasoning, to live care-free in the care of the Father. To live, move, and have your being in oneness with this whole new world. Your reality is the Trinity. You are a unique flavour of their life. They express themselves through you super naturally day-by-day as you flow in the inspiration of your mystical co-union with Christ.

Romans 12:2 highlights that the wisdom of God is there in renewed mind, and with it flows physical transformation as we begin to flow with the reality of this glory. This renewed mind is not something which we partially possess. We have within us the mind of Christ in its entirety. (1 Corinthians 2:16). As we rest, soak, and breathe in this new creation reality; a reality of unhindered union with the Godhead, the glory flows effortlessly. The mystical spring within us bubbles over with life and solves everything. Christ is all and in all – flowing, bubbling, babbling with glorious, beautifying simplicity! (John 7:38).

This whole world dances and prances, gushes and flutters with the wisdom of Christ. God loves to enjoy the reality of this cosmos. Each person, and all flora and fauna, are like different flavoured hookahs to the Christ. He loves to breathe in the flavours and inspired thought of his creativity. God is love-drunk on the reality of existence! Allow these truths to bring about a love-drunkenness in you, a jolly awakening to the endless abundance of life we have in Christ. He is layer upon layer of glorious goodness.

“Then I [wisdom] was constantly [or ‘was the artisan’/’was a little child’] at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing [or ‘playing’] always in his presence, rejoicing [or ‘playing’] in his whole world and delighting in mankind.” – Proverbs 8:30-31

This passage speaks of the Holy Spirit, our artistic, child-like Spirit of Wisdom. Our composition and love-flow. God is a God of child-like simplicity, of enthusiastic play and delight. He is a true artisan of freedom! You were created with God’s love-drunken nature. Your heart and mind are flooded with the colours, beauty, and playful delight of God! The wisdom of God is not stoic, it is aesthetic, delicious, and vibrant – it vibrates heaven’s frequencies throughout your whole being and plunges you into his emotions of bliss, as you re-connect with this revelation of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of heaven on earth. In this Gospel we can experience and discover the endless depths of wisdom and glory! (Colossians 2:3)

His mountain-water wisdom,
flowing within and throughout us,
giving composition to everything.

“And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Acts 13:52

“Live each moment completely and the future will take care of itself. Fully enjoy the wonder and beauty of each moment.”- Paramahansa Yoganandya

“The Gardener, being as He is the Creator of water, pours it in without stint; and whatever the soul has not been able to collect in perhaps twenty years of exhausting intellectual effort, the heavenly Gardener gives it in a moment” – Teresa of Avila.